The Improved Branch and Bound Algorithm for the Resource-constrained Assembly Line Balancing Problem

In the assembly line balancing problem, operations are assigned to stations to achieve large-scale production. However, in practical production, operations can be processed by multiple alternative resources. In this study, a mixed-integer linear program for the assembly line balancing problem including resource constraints, is first formulated. Then, an improved branch and bound algorithm is employed to search for the optimal solution within a solution space tree including the operation and resource layers. And experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm on benchmark data compared with other heuristic algorithms.